1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates generally to the design and manufacturing of piping and plumbing systems, and more particularly to a system and method for designing and manufacturing systems including bent tubing. Even more particularly the present invention relates to a system and method for entering a bent-tube object in a CAD drawing file, and for using the bent-tube object to generate data for driving a tube bender to manufacture a bent tube.
2. Description of the Background Art
Computer assisted design (CAD) systems are well known and widely used in the design of mechanical devices, architectural structures, landscaping, and the like. Known systems (e.g., AutoCAD) allow the designer to enter objects into an electronic drawing file in order to xe2x80x9cdrawxe2x80x9d the device, structure, etc. being designed.
While some CAD programs appear quite complex, and offer the designer a great variety of drawing tools, such programs are essentially only drawing engines. The objects in the drawing files are only arcs, circles, lines, etc. While the arcs, circles, and lines can be grouped to provide the appearance of an object (e.g., a 90xc2x0 pipe elbow), the object is still only a group of arcs, circles, lines, etc. The CAD program does not recognize the object as an entity having any real physical characteristics (e.g., material type, function, etc.).
Plug-in programs have been developed to work with CAD systems to provide additional information about an object in a drawing file. For example, a plug-in program might provide a list of objects that can be entered into a drawing file. Objects provided by plug-in applications typically include data (e.g., material type, end connection conditions, pressure ratings, etc.) in addition to the drawing data, which can be selectively retrieved by the designer.
Known plug-in applications are limited to standard objects that are used repeatedly in systems being designed. For example, components such as elbows, tees, valves, etc. are used repeatedly in various systems without any change to the component itself. Further, such components are typically available as a commodity from suppliers. It is, therefore, efficient to provide such standard objects in a plug-in application.
Some objects, however, necessarily vary from one design to the next. It is not, therefore, efficient to spend the resources necessary to offer such custom objects in a plug-in application, because a custom object designed for one system might never be used in another system.
Bent tubes/pipes are an example of objects not previously offered in plug-in applications. The dimensions and parameters of a bent tube are highly dependent on the specific architecture of an individual project. The number and angle of bends formed in the tube are generally dictated by the physical layout of the project, which varies on a case-by-case basis. Thus, bent tubes are custom objects that are not offered in prior art plug-in applications.
Further, bent tubes for each project or even each piece must be custom made on the fly. The manufacture of such bent tubes requires a user to manually input data into a controller that in turn drives a tube bender to form the bent tube. The operator is required to glean the required information (e.g., bent-tube dimensions) from an engineering drawing printout, modify and/or augment the information based on the type of bender being used, and manually input the data into the controller. This process is very time consuming, and is highly susceptible to operator error.
What is needed, therefore, is a system and method that allows a designer to enter a custom bent-tube object in an electronic drawing file. What is also needed is a system and method to include bender driver data in a custom bent-tube object. What is also needed is a system and method for automatically extracting and/or using information from the bent-tube object to drive a tube bender.
The present invention overcomes the problems associated with the prior art by providing a system and method for entering a custom bent-tube object in a drawing file, and then using the custom bent-tube object to generate bender driver data. The bender driver data can then be used to drive a bending machine to bend a tube to form a custom bent tube corresponding to the custom bent-tube object in the drawing.
One method includes entering a custom bent-tube object in a drawing file and using the bent tube object to generate bender driver data. In a particular method, the step of entering the custom bent-tube object in the drawing file includes entering a multi-segmented line in the drawing file, and generating the custom bent-tube object based at least in part on the lengths of and angles between the segments of the multi-segmented line. In a more particular method, the step of entering the custom bent-tube object further includes selecting a tube type (e.g., a particular diameter, material, etc.), and the step of generating the custom bent-tube object further includes retrieving bent-tube object data from an object data file based at least in part on the tube type. Optionally, the bent-tube object data retrieval is further based on a particular type of tube bending machine.
One method of using the custom bent-tube object to generate bender driver data includes extracting at least a portion of the driver data from the custom bent-tube object. In one particular method, all of the bender driver data is extracted from the custom bent-tube object. Alternatively, a portion of the bender driver data can be retrieved from a separate bender driver data file. Optionally, a portion of the bender driver data is retrieved based at least in part on a user selected bender type. Further, the bender driver data can optionally be converted from data for driving a first type of tube bender to data for driving a second type of tube bender.
The bender driver data can be communicated to tube bender in various ways. In one example, the driver data is extracted from the drawing file, and the bender driver data is then transferred to the bending machine via a removable media, a network connection, or some other data transfer method. In an alternative example, the drawing file itself is provided to the bender controller, and the bender controller extracts the driver data from the custom bent-tube object.
The invention can also be embodied in an electronically readable media having code embodied therein for causing an electronic device to facilitate any or all of the methods disclosed herein. Examples of electronically readable media include, but are not limited to: removable media devices such as magnetic or optical disks; local or remote hard disks; memory devices including random access, read only, and cache memory; and any other device capable of storing digital data, whether now known or later developed.
Systems for using a bent-tube object in a drawing file are also described. One system includes an object manager responsive to input from a user and operative to generate a bent-tube object, and a drawing engine responsive to the object manager and operative to enter the bent-tube object in a drawing file. In a particular embodiment, the object manager is further responsive to a user selected tube type in generating the bent-tube object. The object manager retrieves bent-tube object data based at least in part on the selected tube type. The selected tube type optionally depends on a desired diameter of the tube.
An extraction module is operative to generate/extract bender driver data from the custom bent-tube object. In a particular embodiment, the extraction module generates a portion of the bender driver data from the custom bent-tube object, and retrieves another portion of the bender driver data from a separate data file. Alternatively, the extraction module generates/retrieves substantially all of the bender driver data from the custom bent-tube object. Optionally, a data converter, responsive to indicia of a particular bender type, converts bender driver data for a first type of bender to bender driver data for a second type of bender.
Various data structures for implementing the present invention are also disclosed. One data structure includes a first field containing data representing a graphical image of a bent tube, a second field containing data representing a type of tube to be bent to form the bent tube, and a third field containing data for driving a tube bender to bend said bent tube. Alternatively, the third field contains a link to a data file containing data for driving a tube bender.
A particular data structure further includes a fourth field containing data representing the length of a first line segment, a fifth field containing data representing the length of a second line segment, and a sixth field containing data representing an angle between the first line segment and the second line segment. In a more particular data structure, the sixth field contains a first sub-field containing data representing an absolute angle of the first line segment, and a second sub-field containing data representing an absolute angle of the second line segment.